T he orphanage was quiet — too quiet. Not the stillness of peace, but the silence of children who had stopped believing anyone would come.

Russell and Maria had traveled halfway around the world to meet the two little boys who might soon become their sons. Behind gray walls and iron gates, they were led down echoing halls to a small room filled with metal cribs. The smell of disinfectant lingered in the air. Small faces peered through the bars — not curious, not playful, just waiting.

When they first saw him — a thin little boy with wide eyes — Maria reached down, and he didn’t pull away. She gathered him into her arms and whispered his name. He didn’t speak, didn’t cry. He just leaned into her warmth as if trying to remember what love felt like.

They played on the worn linoleum floor, stacking blocks and tickling tiny toes. For the first time in who knows how long, a faint laugh escaped his lips — quick, uncertain, but real. Russell lifted him high into the air, and the boy smiled. For hours, they held him, fed him, kissed the top of his head. It was as if their hearts had known him forever.

But every visit had to end.

On the final day before returning home, they knew what awaited — that long walk down the corridor, the sound of the door locking behind them, the echo of their own footsteps leaving him behind. They promised they’d return. They said it over and over. But how do you explain paperwork, visas, and government waiting to a child who’s only just discovered love?

When they turned to go, something inside Maria broke. She looked back one more time — just once more — and saw him standing in the crib, his knuckles white around the cold metal bars. His lips trembled, his eyes wide and wet, searching for her face as if memorizing it before it disappeared forever.

Russell’s hand tightened around hers. Neither of them could breathe. The air felt thick — too heavy to swallow. They tried to smile, to wave, to whisper that they’d come back soon. But their words fell flat in the sterile air.

Then it happened. The boy’s mouth opened, and from the hollow silence of that room came a sound no one had ever heard there before — a raw, broken scream that seemed to tear the walls apart. It wasn’t just crying; it was grief, it was fear, it was love that had awakened and didn’t know how to live without them.

His cry filled the hallway, echoing off the tile and chasing them down the corridor. Maria pressed a hand to her chest, wanting to run back — to hold him, to promise he’d never be alone again. But she couldn’t. Not yet.

“Abba!”

The word carried everything — longing, terror, hope, and recognition. It was the sound of a heart that had just learned it was loved… and could not bear to lose it.

Later, Russell wrote, “That was the moment I finally understood what Paul meant — when the Spirit cries out in us, ‘Abba, Father.’”

“Abba” isn’t a gentle nickname like “Daddy.” It’s the cry of a soul that’s been found — the cry that says, Don’t leave me. I’m yours now.

When that little boy screamed “Abba,” he wasn’t performing theology — he was revealing it. And in his cry, we hear our own — the echo of our hearts when we finally believe that Love has come for us, and will never walk away again.

Abba.

Story adapted from Russell & Maria Moore’s adoption reflections; used here to illuminate the Scriptural “Abba” cry (Gal. 4:6; cf. Rom. 8:15).